Connecticut state representative Ernest Hewett (DEMocrat) made for an uncomfortable moment for everyone who attended a legislative hearing concerning the Connecticut Science Museum when a 17 year-old student spoke on her fear of snakes and how learning at the Center helped her overcome it. Hewett uttered this remark to the student “…and if you're bashful, I got a snake sitting under my desk - here" which can, and was, taken as an inappropriate joke.
The representative fell into a storm and was denounced by everyone from the governor on down over the remark and was compelled to apologize which meant that “if” the poor student took offense, then he was sorry. But he disagreed with the interpretation that his comment was sexual but offered no alternative which only leaves us to conclude that the representative probably did have a live snake after all.
Fortunately for those of us who are fighting a war on women the story gets better. It turns out the representative doesn’t have female interns working for him. My question is, what does he need interns for? But others started to ask, why no female? His answer is that he intentionally made it that way, stating:
I purposely will not have female interns. My intern now is male. I want to keep it like that. I've had female interns in the past that sit in my office all day. I thought it was totally weird and I didn't want another…
…I don't know what they're going to give me. They may give me a female, but I don't want a female intern. That may sound sexist, but I really don't. That way that keeps me good and that keeps everybody else good
Okay, the guy is sexist. He’s not supposed to be because he’s not a Republican, but he is. At least he says he is.
It turns out that Hewett may not be a sexist after all and that he feigned sexism as a cover. You read that right, he’s pretending to be a discriminator as a rouse. The real story is he is forbidden to have women interns because the representative is a bit of a cretin and several women have come forward to complain about his behavior.
Representative Mae Flexer, (DEMocrat), who is in charge of the intern program, said “We know he has a history of bad behavior, and we made a choice not to expose young women to that behavior” which means being a louse allows Hewett an exemption from equal opportunity-affirmative action in the “workplace” laws.
And all this was going on without a care in the world. He comes on to female interns, other legislators know about it, and so they make an adjustment by practicing discrimination. In the meantime Connecticut government has what is called “The Permanent Commission on the Status of Women” bureaucracy that is very busy because men are in first place and that isn’t fair. They haven’t spoke out on this because the "status" of second place suits them just fine and in fact keeps them in business. This has nothing to do with the story but I wrote it anyway.
Ernest Hewett will not resign, isn’t being asked to resign and will probably win his next election because he cares about the middle class, the poor, clean air, clean water and always brushes his teeth. But it would take an expert in liberal postmodern ethics to sort out whether or not Hewett should be allowed to hire women.
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